


Full Circle

by Skulker



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alien Biology/Hermaphroditism, Alien Sex, Grumpy Piccolo, Light Masochism, Messy Emotional Stuff, Messy Sex Stuff, Other, Slow Burn, Sweet Long-Suffering Dende, discovering sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-19 04:10:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11889723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skulker/pseuds/Skulker
Summary: Piccolo had always thought he was above the general ridiculous obsession with sex, intimacy and affection...until a long overdue conversation makes him realise he just wasn't paying attention.Just because he nowispaying attention doesn't mean he has to actually do anything about it, though. Absolutely not. No. Never....Maybe.





	1. Talk

**Author's Note:**

> Just so you know:  
> As the tags say, this story contains: discovering sexuality, alien biology, messy emotional stuff, messy sex stuff, a little bit of masochism, and Piccolo being acutely embarrassed about _allllll_ of the above.
> 
> This story does NOT actually contain: pregnancy, eggs, or babies.
> 
> It’s sort of set between DBZ and GT, but not actually in Super because Super appears to have bafflingly forgotten how old/tall Dende should be. He is absolutely an adult in this fic.
> 
> It goes with idea that Namekians are serious, spiritual people with a beautiful, peaceful culture, and are also alien hermaphrodites sort of based on slugs who can canonically do some pretty gross, slimy, stretchy things with their bodies. Hope you're up for that....

Piccolo liked to think he was good at hiding his emotions. 

He prided himself on being able to maintain an impassive scowl whatever the circumstances. Whatever life threw at him, no matter how dangerous, how dire, how joyful, how embarrassing; he’d remain steadfast, frowning angrily at the world, as unflappable as an ancient glacier.

And yet he’d begun to notice that however perfect his façade, certain people could always see through it somehow. 

Take today for example. If asked he would concede that, yes, it had taken a month of considering, and second-guessing, and doubting himself before he finally made up his mind to actually do it. And, yes, once he’d decided to get it over with, he’d made a few false starts when he suddenly thought of several exceedingly important things he needed to do just as he was about to set off. And, yes, he had flown to the Lookout via a rather less direct route than was strictly necessary, taking a wide detour to indulge a sudden interest in sea views. And, yes, when he’d actually arrived he’d been in such as state of nervous tension that he’d walked though a bed of tulips and responded to Dende’s cheery ‘good afternoon’ with a constipated-sounding grunt. But – _but_ –, this was the important thing: his face had been an impenetrable mask of granite. He was certain of that.

So he was somewhat taken aback when Dende stared up at him in dismay and asked what was wrong.

“Nothing,” Piccolo snapped automatically. Dende remained infuriatingly silent, and stood studying his face with his big, empathic eyes for the long moment it took for Piccolo to concede, “but I do want to talk to you about something.”

“Oh, of course,” Dende said. Seeing Piccolo glance around awkwardly, he led the way to the edge of the Lookout. They settled down just by the lip of it, surrounded by empty white marble tiles on one side and a smooth layer of unbroken violet cloud on the other, completely alone.

Piccolo set about the important task of tucking his cape in out of the wind, and glared up as Dende asked, “so what is it?”

“Well,” Piccolo said decisively, then paused and adjusted his cape again. “Yes. Well, it's kind of a question.”

“Please go ahead.”

“It's a little bit embarrassing,” Piccolo said. 

“You don’t have to worry if it’s private,” Dende said. “You know I keep your secrets.”

Piccolo adjusted his cape again.

“Is it something personal?” Dende prompted lightly.

“Hrm.”

“Or something about your health?”

“Sort of.”

“Is it to do with-"

“I want to be a father,” Piccolo blurted and, as Dende blinked back his surprise, forged on, “I’ve wanted to for a long time, I think, I just never connected the dots. It all just fell into place today when I was looking after Pan for Gohan. She knows me so well now, and she’s so glad when I’m there, and yet I just spent the entire time pacing around dreading the moment that they were going to come back and take her away from me. She must wonder where I go, and why I don’t stay with her, why I just hand her back. _I_ wonder why I hand her back. I want my own.” He trailed off, and looked at Dende who still looked a little stunned. “I know that’s not what you’d expect from me-"

“Oh, no, it’s exactly what I’d expect from you, Piccolo,” Dende soothed.“You’ve always been so protective; I’ve always thought you’ll be an excellent father. It’s just,” he swallowed hard and stared up at Piccolo seriously, “what exactly do you want to ask me?”

“Well,” Piccolo said, and then made a series of facial expressions indicative of every exasperated emotion before he managed to splutter out, “ _How?_ ”

Dende’s face froze. “How...? How what?”

“Just…how?” He glared broodingly around the Lookout. “This will sound ridiculous to you but I really don’t know how to make it happen. I grew up here alone and while I’m mostly in tune with my body and what it wants and needs, I just don’t get this; I just sort of expected one day when the time was right I’d cough up an egg and that would be that. But the time is now, and my body wants it, my mind wants it, _I_ want it…but how? I have a lot of memories from my father, and some from Kami and some from Nail, but they seem to have kept this locked up tight. I don’t know what I need to do.” Piccolo said, and added, “Sorry.”

Dende looked down at his own knees, and then said too lightly and casually, “have you ever taken a lover?”

There was a long pause of acute embarrassment in which the word ‘lover’ expanded to take up the thinking part of Piccolo’s brain. “No,” he managed at last.

Dende shrugged apologetically. “That’s kind of a prerequisite I’m afraid.”

“I thought I could lay an egg by myself? My father did.”

“Well, you can, but when you put your soul in an egg like he did, you’ll die.”

“Oh," Piccolo said. “But didn’t Guru repopulate the whole planet by himself?”

“Guru had many partners as a young man before the disaster; he could have lived another few decades and kept fertilising eggs. None of his children are clones like you are from your father; some of us are only slightly related to Guru.” 

Piccolo nodded seriously, though his mind was a whirring blank. He had expected this conversation to be acutely, palms-sweatingly, wake-up-in-the-night-cold-with-dread embarrassing. He had steeled himself for the shameful stupidity of having to reveal the profoundest ignorance about his own species and request that an exceedingly polite and shy young man explain the facts of life to him like he was an idiot child. But never, never, never in his wildest, most pessimistic dreading, had he expected the conversation to take a nosedive into this uncharted territory. 

Lover! 

Many partners.

_Fertilising_. 

Sex, basically.

Sex. That exquisitely distasteful word. A word that was to him so bound up in the sweatiest, grubbiest bits of Earth culture – dirty mags, and pigs with panty fetishes, and all that.

Using all his practised face-of-granite skills not to blush like a schoolboy, he hastened to clarify, “obviously I did know Namekians could have sex, you understand. I just…” Piccolo trailed off, wondering how to explain it so that Dende wouldn’t laugh at him …he thought it was an optional extra? A bonus feature? A hobby for bored cabbage farmers with time on their hands? He settled on: “I didn’t think we had to. I never thought of that as something that would be relevant to me.”

“I know you don’t.” At Piccolo’s glance, Dende clarified: “Telepathically, those channels in you are sealed, locked and bolted.” 

Piccolo was surprised, both that those psychic channels existed, and that anyone had noticed them. “I guess that’s that, then.” 

“Why?”

“Because that part of me is closed. I guess…I was here alone for too long. The only other of my kind was a part of myself I hated, and in any case, I had no time for anything but the fight. I’ve never thought about it.”

“Well, if the problem is just that you’ve never thought about, perhaps you can think about it? You haven’t been alone for a long time, now, you know. Obviously it doesn’t feel much different here on Earth, because there’s only me and…clearly, I’m not an option for you – but,” he forged on at dangerous speed, “There’s a whole planet of people on New Namek. Warriors, poets, artists, mages. Strong, clever, spiritual, protective, tall, beautiful. You wouldn’t have to forge deep, emotional relationships if you didn’t want to. But I’m sure you could find a lover, if you looked.” Dende looked down at his hands. “Or maybe you won’t. Maybe that part of you will always be closed away. But it won’t hurt you to ask yourself the question.” They looked at the sky for another stretch, and Dende added, “I have always been a bit surprised you’ve never shown the slightest curiosity about New Namek.”

Piccolo was silent for a long time, before he spoke.

“It was a strange feeling, when I went to Namek, and then when the Namekians came to Earth. I had always thought being an outsider here, a lone demon on a planet of humans, was isolating. It was nothing to being an outsider in my own home, surrounded by my own people. I have never felt so alone. I don’t belong there.” He scratched his claws lightly across the marble tiles, then dug them in. “I’m an Earthling.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to how the rest of us feel about you. I’ve always felt at home with you.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin taking a lover.”

“No one does the first time; I didn’t. It works out somehow or other. They would show you what they wanted and listen to you to find what you wanted in return.”

“I don’t know what I want.” He felt like he was trying to exasperate Dende on purpose, but Dende’s voice stayed gentle and understanding.

“Then you could find out, too. Piccolo, no one would put any pressure on you. Everyone knows that you’ve spent your life on Earth away from you own kind, everyone would have a great deal of empathy with how you must feel. And great many of us don’t have everything sorted out ourselves. There’s all manner of sexualities on Namek: some people choose to be chaste, or don’t care for romance, or want lots of partners, or don’t want relationships, or do but don’t want sex, and that’s fine. And any of those people can change their minds if their feelings about what they want change. Just like you can.”

“I didn’t come here to talk about this,” Piccolo cut him off, flustered. “I got the information I needed.”

“Sorry, Piccolo, I -”

“I should leave. Thank you for explaining that to me, I appreciate your patience. Sorry for putting you on the spot.”

And with that he dropped off the edge of the Lookout, and didn’t let his ki pull him out of freefall until he broke the cloud layer.

\--------------------

Piccolo had found a secluded spot to sit and meditate, if you could count brooding with your head in your hands 'meditating'.

Even with his mixed up memories he knew the grim mechanics of sex, but even though he disliked the idea of human coitus – people sweatily smacking their waist-mounted genitals together - he’d been on Earth so long he couldn’t help finding the sex of his own species bizarre. Someone in the collection of people Piccolo was made up of had gifted him memories of drooly, messy Namekian intercourse, which was sort of like French kissing. Well, with the tiny, minor modification that instead of putting your tongues in each other’s mouths, you instead uncoiled the several feet of cock that lay curled up at the base of your tongue, pushed it into your partner’s mouth and deep down in their throat– all while they did exactly the same thing to you - until you each eased into the female part of their reproductive system where visitor’s sperm got stored for a later date when you felt like fertilising some of your eggs. Again, he’d been on Earth so long and almost completely in the company of men that he regarded himself as generally male and was occasionally surprised to recall he had ovaries gathering dust somewhere in his abdomen. 

None of this made sex appealing. He’d always felt a quiet satisfaction that he’d never have to go through with it. Even getting aroused made him feel a bit dirty, the way his mouth would flood with thin slime faster than he could swallow it. He rarely masturbated, but he occasionally woke up from a wet dream with his cock engorged in his throat, or partially extruded onto his tongue, sperm capsules sticky and ready to burst in his mouth. It was messy and mortifying enough by himself. The thought of getting a second person involved to add their own bucketful of slimy bodily juices to the chaos…that was not happening. Letting someone to see him at his most vulnerable and desperate, letting them slither their cock into his body and come into him….no. Just no. He felt betrayed by his own body that he was apparently required to go through with something like that. It didn’t seem fair.

He pulled his cloak around himself and wished he could go back to this morning, when he’d still been blissfully ignorant of the whole thing, and sweetly, naively believed that at any moment an egg might just magically drop out of his mouth somehow, without any mess or fuss. 

And speaking of ignorance, he had yet more new knowledge to make life awkward: Dende had had a crush on him, and maybe still did. Piccolo didn’t know how to feel about that, except for appreciating Dende’s judgement in realising it was something Piccolo couldn’t handle, and respecting Dende’s skill in keeping it tidily, politely under wraps. Piccolo had lived on-and-off at the Lookout throughout Dende’s adolescence and coming of age and hadn’t had the faintest inkling Dende was in love with him. Of course, Dende hadn’t waited for him, by the sound of it, and he was thankful for that.

Two other jigsaw pieces clicked coldly into place. If an older man, who was the reincarnation of an ancient demon king and an experienced warrior (and a complete idiot), barrels into your home with an important question that he’s too embarrassed to ask, and then reveals that he wants to be a father, a logical, sensible, young man wouldn’t assume the question was _‘how are babies made?’_ , because what sort of idiot doesn’t know how babies are made? No, he’d assume that the embarrassing question might be _‘will you help me with that?’_. Piccolo thought of the serious way Dende had looked at him and asked “what exactly do you want to ask me?”. He could’ve been expecting nothing else than a proposition. And if Piccolo had asked it, Dende would have said ‘yes’. Perhaps he had hoped and waited for it. 

But, no, that hadn’t happened. He had stomped over that in a way Dende must have found excruciating. And then – fresh horrors- having had his own suit absolutely rejected before he’d even offered it, Dende had obligingly stepped aside to describe to Piccolo the finest selection of beautiful, strong warriors that New Namek had to offer instead. Tall ones.

How _awful_. What a thing to do to someone you care about.

That was it, Piccolo decided. That moment where perhaps he could have asked Dende to be his lover and Dende would have said yes. That was as close as he was ever going to get to sex and relationships. That was it.

He was never going near the subject again. 

He would never be a father. 

He would die alone.

He would go back to spending all his time alone punching rocks in the wilderness. 

Perhaps he’d open a portal to Hell and see if they needed a new Demon King, because, seriously, how could it possibly be worse down there than here on Earth.


	2. Images

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first chapter was greeted by the good masses of AO3 with an absolute, deafening silence, but here I am with chapter 2 - undaunted in my commitment to serve up weird alien porn to an unwilling internet. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. 
> 
> Anyway, in this chapter Piccolo also indulges in some highbrow literature. Enjoy.

For his birthday party, Roshi had demanded that everyone brought him a dirty magazine. No exceptions.

Naturally, a few had taken the mission brief with the seriousness of fellow fans: Oolong had brought a heavy volume called TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES that lived up to its title, and Krillin had supplied a pictoral where everyone seemed to be having a good time at the beach despite their seriously inadequate swimwear. Everyone else, however, had gone out of their way to find the most un-Roshi, outré publications they could lay hands on. The less inspired had gone for items featuring muscular men with big moustaches. Puar had brought a magazine of fluffy cats playing with balls of wool. Bulma had found one that featured women – attractive women, even – but where the ladies were background, mere decoration for large pieces of erotically presented industrial construction equipment.

Piccolo had thought about not playing along, but had instead relented and bought a gardening magazine - he’d been quietly pleased with this pun until he’d arrived and found Tien had come with the same idea.

Dende, however, straight-facedly presented Roshi with a thick publication printed in green ink on cabbage-y paper: the classic work of illustrated Namekian erotic poetry, _Raindrop Beneath the Forest Canopy_. Written entirely in the most florally obtuse Namekian, it told what was at its core a rather straightforward story: a young man called Cornu getting lost in the woods, finding a pool occupied by another young man, having a nice hard screw and then going home. Of course Roshi didn’t have any inkling of this because he took one brief glance at the cover illustration (a pair of broad-shouldered, chiselled-jawed green men exchanging smouldering gazes in a pool of flowers) and cast it aside so fast he’d hurt himself. Piccolo was better informed because he’d managed to palm it off into his cloak while ‘helping’ clear up and was now reading it for the fourth time.

Piccolo's written Namekian was a little rusty, and the first time he’d read it he became so distracted by the illustrations that he gave up on the text altogether. It started out so pretty and tame and had been explained by Dende as ‘a romance’, so Piccolo had been expecting a tortured description of feelings and perhaps a kiss on the cheek. He’d been increasingly scandalised at each fresh development as he turned the pages. His thoughts became a jumbled mess of 'hell, they’re really getting into that, god, they actually drew the drool, he’s so wet, _surely_ they’re not going to go any further, well there go _his_ clothes, they’re not going to actually do it are they? They can't! But there’s a lot of pages to go, so they must do _something_. God, his neck! I can’t believe somebody drew this, are they even allowed to draw this? He likes that, wow. _Dende_ brought this to a party?! And, oh. Right. Is that his-? Ok, yes. They’re doing it. Oh, right. Yes. Wow.” And had not only shut the book like it was Pandora's box, but quickly put it out of sight as if the mere cover was dangerous. In a credit to Piccolo's restraint, it actually stayed there several hours.

During his second read-through he actually managed to make it all the way to the end, though still with his heart thudding in his ears. And though he’d been too flustered to read it the first time, he was faintly disappointed that they sank modestly beneath the water for the actual money-shot, as it were. Not that there would actually be much to see during the mutual, internal fertilisation that you hadn’t already seen with their throbbing cocks pushing into each other’s mouths on the page before, but still.

The third time he’d gone back and actually read the words. The rigid verse structure and rather overwrought descriptions endeavoured hard to give an illusion of depth and romance to what was essentially a one-night stand, but tended to lose themselves rather as soon as things heated up. And though the author of this uncredited tale could be said to have attempting to give his work a veneer of respectability in coyly avoiding _drawing_ anyone having an orgasm, he hadn’t stinted words describing it. Piccolo had to read that bit twice.

Now on his fourth read though, he was enjoying a curated ‘greatest hits’ of the more engrossing parts.

The part where Cornu allowed himself to be led into the water was nice, pulling the hem of his robe up to his knees so it wouldn’t get wet, as if he were pretending to himself that he wasn’t about to throw the whole robe aside eight pages later.

They way they pressed their antennae together was nicely done, and Piccolo unconsciously lingered over it with his lower lip between his teeth. It was the kind of closeness Piccolo was comfortable letting himself want – safe, clothed, barely touching, but still very intimate.

Their first kisses were strangely satisfying. Cornu was reluctant at first, then gradually melted into it until his arms were shortly round the stranger’s shoulders and slime from his wet mouth was running down their chins.

There was an illustration he particularly liked of the stranger’s hands spread on Cornu’s back, one hand lightly stroking the middle ridge, the other just digging its clawtips into the flesh.

He was intrigued that though, frou-frou as the story and presentation was, how tender and rough their love making was in turns. Petting, then scratching; stroking then nipping. Loving embraces and smouldering looks, followed by the stranger baring his neck and Cornu straight-up sinking his fangs into it.

On the rare occasions Piccolo had masturbated, he’d always been slightly unsettled by the simultaneously aggressive and masochistic slant his urges took that left his own arms and chest scratched up and tinglingly regenerating as he orgasmed. It was reassuring to know that wasn’t something left over from his demon-clan ancestry, but an established part of Namekian sexuality. Or was it? It was hard to imagine a polite and peaceful individual like Dende shredding clothes with his claws and with purple blood on his canines. Except in just thinking that he had envisioned it briefly; Dende with his pristine white Kami robe torn and a feral look on his face… - he put that complicated thought away and skipped ahead to the page to where Cornu and his friend were illustrated exchanging more wet kisses with their cocks now heavy on their tongues, and the poem strained its meter to describe in gushing detail.

Piccolo felt his mouth water, and swallowed back guiltily. How ridiculous. Was he really about to have a wank over a porn mag? He’d spent his whole life sneering disdainfully at humans and the way they could be hypnotised by a few grubby photos. Was his high-minded disdain of the concept simply because he’d never found the right pictures?

He shut the book, and forced himself into grim, cold meditation until he could no longer feel his cock pulsing in his throat.

\-------------------------------------------------

Piccolo started doing a lot of meditation. 

He had to, because whenever his thoughts weren't carefully supervised they would creep traitorously back to _Raindrop Beneath the Forest Canopy_. He wished he’d never read it. It had been easy not to think about sex when he had no thoughts on the subject.

For example, he had actually had no idea if, back before they split, his father and Kami as a complete person had a sex life. They certainly hadn’t after the split because as individuals they had only loathing for one another, and any memories left from their mysterious fore-father were now dusty, threadbare antiques that had been handed down, bottled up, torn apart, sewn back together until they were little more than gut feeling. He hadn’t even suspected that he wasn’t actually from Earth, for heaven's sake. 

Nail did have memories on the subject as, even though he’d spent most of his adult life as a loner dedicated to serving Guru, he had still had partners. However, all of that had been easy for Piccolo to ignore. Nail hadn’t wanted to share those things with Piccolo and, back then, Piccolo was even less interested in sharing them. They’d been briskly swept up with all the other experiences that were irrelevant and private, and bundled away in the attic of his psyche. Now so many years had gone by and Nail had merged so completely into him that those thoughts had faded into shadows. It was utterly bizarre to think that he, Piccolo, had presumably seen some of Nail’s lovers during the brief period they stayed on Earth before the dragon whisked them all away to New Namek. He hadn’t registered which, though, and with exquisite sensibility none had attempted more than a brief goodbye. Most of Nail’s friends had done nothing but quietly regard him from a distance, like a funeral party at a graveside. His former partners had probably taken one look at Piccolo’s ‘sealed, locked and bolted’ psychic channels and realised that anything they’d had with Nail was over. Must have been pretty disappointing, Piccolo thought, that one of the few not to survive the war with Frieza had been their boyfriend, who was now part of a cold, frigid stranger with an Earth accent and an attitude problem. 

Piccolo had therefore never had any remotely concrete material to work with in terms of fantasy, and was unsettled by the way his mind had apparently seized on _Raindrop Beneath the Forest Canopy_ to fill in those gaps. It was ridiculous, he thought - the plot was non-existent, the characters utterly flat, and the artist really struggled to draw noses sometimes. But the imagery of the thing was...well, it was fascinating. Piccolo’s imagination wasn’t great at visuals, but he could imagine the secretive, quiet of the secluded forest as Cornu walked alone, the cool airy space of the lake under the trees, the cold, flat stones of the shoreline on his bare feet and then the water from the sun-warmed river that fed into the forest. He could imagine how it felt to be about to strip off for a swim, and suddenly feeling eyes upon you, looking up on guard ready for a fight and instead meeting the level, inviting gaze of a stranger. A stranger who was the same as you.

He reflected bitterly that Cornu had had it easy. Sex and all its revolting complications, after all, was what stood in the way of his imagined future as a father. Why couldn’t he just stumble across a convenient stranger who would boldly seduce him and them bid him farewell? That would simplify his life a lot. Although, then again, Piccolo could only regard with scepticism the idea that he’d relax enough to let a stranger lead him, touch him, seduce him. No, that was very unlikely. 

Perhaps it could be the other way around? He subconsciously rattled his claws against each other as his thoughts went deeper: perhaps he could get Goku to teleport him to Namek, where he could be the stranger, take station in some deserted forest pool and wait for a convenient suitor to be tempted in to join him. Of course, Cornu’s mysterious stranger had been an adroit lover, confident, teasing and rather fey and pretty into the bargain (although with a manly cleft chin and a jawline you could cut yourself on). Had Cornu stumbled across a mysterious stranger that was A) a seething mess of nervous energy B) an anxious virgin who wasn't even sure if he wanted sex at all but was grimly determined to try it, and C) a third again as tall as he was and more powerfully built than anyone on the planet.... well, Cornu might have had a few more reservations about the whole thing. No, it was fair to say that a stranger wasn't the answer to his problems.

Of course - and he explored this idea as clinically as if he were handling it with mental tweezers- there _was_ an alternative to a stranger. Dende was, after all, a steady, trusted presence in his life and actually here on Earth _right now_. All indications were that he was quite prossibly willing to gently and carefully walk Piccolo through the whole thing. And on the surface, there shouldn't be any problem with that: Dende was a skilled, intelligent mage; a steady, supportive friend; and, though Piccolo was pretty dead to physical attraction, he could concede Dende was at least appealingly petite, with an open, emphatic face and pleasingly calm manner. He was already fond of Dende - but that was the problem, in a way. Dende wasn’t a stranger or a fantasy, he was a friend, someone he wanted to protect, someone with his own complex needs and wants that Piccolo couldn’t hope to meet right now. Piccolo wasn’t confident he would ever be up to the job of being a satisfactory lover for Dende. 

The whole sex thing was never going to happen for him, Piccolo decided.

It was hopeless.

Pointless.

He should really stop thinking about it.

Really.

Really.

….it was fair to say that Piccolo meditated a lot that month.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far. Next chapter it all starts to get a little less hypothetical for Piccolo, and a little more tangible.


	3. Touch

What happened next, Piccolo justified, happened for legitimate medical reasons. Medical reasons induced by the brutally severe training regimen he had launched himself into as a distraction from the seething pit of impure thoughts that simmered in his subconscious, true, but no one needed to know that.

He had pulled his shoulder – with ‘pulled’ being a polite way of saying _absolutely fucked_. He’d woken up from one of the fitful snatches of unconsciousness that passed for sleep these days feeling like his arm had been taken off in the night and nailed back on in the wrong place with a harpoon. Every movement of his back wrenched it further, and every movement of his arm felt heavy and slow, like his fingers were a long, long way away.

No amount of prodding, stretching, twisting or soaking had made the slightest improvement, which left _rest_ as the only other option for healing it by himself. However, the thought of not training under the current circumstances was unbearable. What was he supposed to do, just sit around and _think_ all day? 

So he went to the Lookout.

Without preamble he presented his arm to Dende and asked, “can you fix this?” He shrugged off his cape and turban and scooted down so Dende could examine his shoulder. He felt the warm, welcoming tingles of healing magic ripple through his muscles and sighed with the instant relief.

“Don’t get too excited, I can see it’s still tensed up. Show me the range of movement you have? Hmm, yes. Is it tender to touch? No? Can I feel? Tell me if this hurts-"

“Yes,” Piccolo said instantly.

“Oh, well, magic will stop it hurting for a bit, but it can’t physically move things around so you aren’t pinching your nerves like a vice. What on Earth have you been doing to work it into this state, anyway?”

“Training,” Piccolo said vaguely.

“You must have been training pretty hard. You need to take it easier for a little bit, I think.”

“Probably. But what can I do about it?”

“Just that, take it easy,” Dende said with maddening simplicity, as if that was something he could just _do_. “It needs rest and the chance to heal naturally.”

“I need to train, though.”

“Whatever for? If there’s some new intergalactic threat closing in on the Earth, I’d have hoped someone would have mentioned it to me. Otherwise you can take a couple of weeks off.” He looked Piccolo up and down with an uncomfortably penetrating gaze and said, “in fact I think you _should_ take some time off. You seem overwrought.”

 _If only you knew_ , Piccolo thought. Instead he said, trying not to sound desperate, “can’t you do anything? That healing you just did is the first relief I’ve had from it.”

“Healing magic won’t work because it’s not damaged, really, it’s just tensed up to the point it’s trapping your nerves and pulling your shoulder out of the joint. My magic can’t tell your body to stop doing that – you have to relax and let it. Once you’ve relaxed a bit, perhaps I could play osteopath and try and squeeze it back into place, but if I do it now it’ll really hurt.”

“Do it now,” Piccolo said, urgently. “Seriously, dig it out, I don’t care if it hurts.”

“Well, maybe I could, if you actually want me to give you a back rub?” Dende said, dubiously, looking a little embarrassed.

A little voice in Piccolo’s brain that sounded a quite like Kami reminded him _you know he’s quietly nursing an affection for you – is this wise?_ But he squashed it back with the thought, _we’re both pretending that he isn’t, so this is fine_.

“It’s really interfering with my training,” he said decisively.

“Right, OK.” Dende said. Now Piccolo was looking for it, he could see that Dende was indeed carefully putting his emotions away – in fact, doing the exact thing Piccolo did himself to keep his perpetual poker face. In Dende’s case this resulted in a serene little smile rather than a fuck-off-and-die scowl, but the principle was the same. “Well you should probably come inside.” And he led Piccolo into cool shade of one of the Lookout’s arched anterooms, and then adopted a doctor-like manner as he surveyed the furniture, “you’re probably best to sit backwards on that couch, and then lean forward to rest your sternum here on the backrest. Yes, like that.” He placed his hands gently on Piccolo’s back, rubbed from top to bottom slowly through the fabric, and then drew back as Piccolo sat up to shrug his loose shirt off his shoulders and down to his waist.

“I know you’re being respectful because I don’t like being touched, and thank you,” Piccolo said. “But it’s been driving me insane, I want you to really dig it out properly.”

“Oh, yes – one minute, then,” Dende said and vanished. Piccolo hoped he’d gone to get some oil or something, and was gratified to find that he had. It was a block of wax that melted where it touched his skin. It smelled like medicine, but felt nice. Dende’s hands swept smoothly up the planes of his back, and down, putting on no pressure, just melting the wax into his skin and getting him used to the touch.

Piccolo was _not_ used to the touch, it turned out. He hadn’t realised until this moment how seldom he was really touched and how unsettling it felt; gentle strokes, testing his muscles, not wanting to hurt him.

“Goodness, your back seems to be made of iron pipes and rusty springs. How do you mediate at all while you’re this tense?”

“I manage.”

Dende was working his way slowly up towards Piccolo’s shoulders as if trying not to startle them by coming on too quickly, gradually gaining ground by sweeping his thumbs up either side of the spine further and further, taking note of various knots and twinges but not attempting to do anything about them just yet.

Against his will, Piccolo felt his shoulders rise up to somewhere around his ears.

“Piccolo, if you fight me on this we won’t get anywhere; each of your shoulders is stronger than my whole body.” 

Dende had to lead him through some embarrassingly basic yogic breathing, matching Piccolo’s inhales and exhales with stronger presses followed by lighter until he’d relaxed enough to let his shoulders drop back to chin level.

“That’s probably as good as we’re going to get. Now try and keep your breathing steady; this may hurt-"

“Don’t worry, I’m not – HELL-!” There was the brief sensation as if Dende had removed his shoulder joint from its socket, adjusted it slightly and put it back in again that made his vision flash white, but then before he could even properly register the excruciating, red-hot pain of it, it was suddenly replaced by an equally intense wave of relief. He sagged, limply, as healing magic was rubbed soothingly into his muscles, which were obediently unclenching, defeated. He lay in a haze as his shoulders were kneaded slowly, thoroughly, back into shape, shutting his eyes as knots and gnarls were teased out and smoothed over. Careful fingertips eased his shoulderblades apart, and relieved the taut tendons around his shoulders as best they could without entering the forbidden territory of his neck. It was a shame, he reflected, that when not hurting like absolute hell the top of his trapeziums would be a prime erogenous zone and it would therefore be pretty scandalous to ask Dende to rub them for him. Still, the rest of his back was feeling the closest to relaxed as it had for a long time, and the relief made him a little dizzy.

Without realising it, he slipped into a meditative state, existing in a space bounded by the touch of the hands on his back, the black of his closed eyelids, the sound of the wind whistling through the Lookout’s marble arches, and the herbal scent of the wax.

He stayed like this for what seemed like a long time until Dende’s hands wandered downwards to get to work on his lower back, and found a fresh set of knots and tangles that made Piccolo hiss.

“Does that hurt?” Dende asked in the quiet voice one might use for a sleepy kitten, and pushed lightly against his lumbar spine.

“Yes,” he spoke slowly like he’d just been woken up, “but it feels good. Keep going.”

“Mm, I think perhaps that’s enough for now. This is too big a job to do all at once. You might feel a bit rough tomorrow as it is, while your body works out how to get rid of all the stress I just squeezed out of your back.”

“I do feel like I just did some hard training.”

“No wonder. Can you at least move your shoulder?”

Piccolo rolled it gingerly one way then the other and stretched it out with satisfaction. “God, that feels good. I needed that.”

“You certainly did. I doubt it’s really fixed it though – it’s going to need some persistent care to do that. Come back if you want me to have a second run at it. And in the meantime, at least _try_ and rest it.”

“I will,” Piccolo replied, and he felt an instant of pleasure at the smile Dende turned up at him before the knowing Kami-voice in his head added factually _the whole reason you came up here was for attention and affection_ and he felt rather stupid and a bit manipulative. Except his shoulder did feel better, and Dende really did look happy, so what was the harm in it? He supposed, to someone with healing as a vocation, treating a back like Piccolo’s would give a similar sort of satisfaction to the type he felt when vanquishing a deadly opponent in battle.

But, good though it felt, he decided he shouldn’t make a habit of it. It wouldn’t be fair to Dende, for one thing. Besides, Piccolo was a loner. He didn’t need this sort of affection and it wouldn’t do to get too used to it.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Piccolo found himself back at the Lookout the very next evening, of course. He’d woken up feeling almost hungover, the way he sometimes did after intensive training after a long break. All kinds of muscles that had been suffering in silence for a long time were now all vying for his attention, as if they’d tasted a bit of care and consideration and wanted more. He had paced around, and put it off, and pussyfooted, but eventually, he’d given in. The second evening had been similar to the first, although he’d been relaxed enough to let Dende work on his lower back and it felt good. It hurt, but the kind of pleasant ache that he normally only got from training, the kind of ache that meant he was doing his body a favour. 

It felt much better by the third evening. He had the full range of movement back and the pain, though distracting, wasn’t anything he couldn’t work though. It would be, he thought, immensely self-indulgent to go back for more, even though Dende had given him permission to do so. It was also ridiculously entitled to request that the Guardian of the entire Earth spend a third evening looking after a shoulder injured entirely through efforts not to masturbate. He briefly imagined some natural disaster destroying the Earth while he was distracting Dende, and then being hauled up in front of a jury of senior Kais to explain himself.

Still, he ached. And so he went back to the Lookout.

In short order, he found himself laying flat on a long couch, with Dende leaning over him, working his back. The combination of the light, smooth pressure on his back and the fact he was now comfortable enough to really relax put him into a complete, contented trance almost as soon as it started. His entire focus followed the path of the hands on his back; long careful sweeps all the way up from the base to the top, up his sides, lingering over the hard skin on his shoulders, rippling down either side of his spine, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. He was almost asleep when he felt the strokes slow down.

“That feels much better,” Dende was saying, with the personal pride of a craftsman.

“Thank you,” Piccolo said, sounding groggy and not really caring. “Sorry I’m taking up so much of your time. This is getting to be a bit of a habit.”

“Oh, I don’t mind at all. I’m happy to, but I won’t be here tomorrow evening. Goku’s taking me to Namek to see the Night.” 

Piccolo nodded. Due to Namek’s three suns night happened only occasionally, an average of once every two years, and lasted only twenty minutes or so. It was generally celebrated with quiet meditation (as usual, Namek was decidedly not a party planet), where people enjoyed the spectacular setting and rising of the planet’s huge suns, and the rare glimpse of the moons in their full glory, the big cobalt moon _Shel_ and the five little pink satellites. 

After a long pause Dende added, “Would you like to come?”

Piccolo looked over his shoulder, trying to get a handle on where that offer had come from, but Dende’s face was completely unreadable.

“No, I’d feel like an intruder. But thank you.”

“I want to try and persuade you that you’re wrong, but I’ll spare you,” Dende said, and started clearing up. “Sorry, I won’t keep asking; you’ve told me how you feel about it.”

Piccolo nodded and groggily watched Dende potter about, putting things away. He felt, well, not _guilty_ for turning down the offer as such, but it would be nice to do something in return for Dende. It’s a shame that literally the only thing Dende had ever asked him for was something he absolutely could not do. What he actually wanted to do was to set him down and stroke his back and rub his shoulders and generally look after him. Dende spent a lot of time taking care of people and not much time getting taken care of, and that didn't seem right….Piccolo was deep into a pleasant, vague reverie involving his huge hands and Dende’s slim shoulders when he yawned so suddenly he was too surprised to stifle it, so it came out as an expansive, loud, Goku-style one.

Dende laughed at him kindly. “You need to stop working so hard, Piccolo. You can sleep here with me if you like?”

Piccolo hesitated a second before he said ‘yes’ and then felt ridiculous. A combination of the bad place his brain had been in recently and being so used to humans and the absurd, misleading uses they put the word ‘sleep’ to had made that sound like a proposition, even though no Namekian anywhere had ever planned to perform any kind of sexual act in a bed. Or on any absorbent surface they didn’t want to be wringing a gallon of slime out of later, for that matter. On planet Namek to offer to sleep with someone meant exactly that, to companionably sleep in proximity with them. _This is it_ , Piccolo thought, _I’m actually becoming a pervert_. 

Piccolo settled down on a couch in a darkened room, listening absently to the Lookout going through its night time routine – Mr Popo watering flowers that would get scorched if it was done while the sun was up, Dende tidying books and scrolls away, the tiny minds of butterflies and bees settling down to quiet inactivity. 

He gazed up at the white, domed ceiling and let the scent of lilies wash over him from the nearby window. _This is a pure, holy place_ , Piccolo thought to himself severely, _and my thoughts will be pure and holy_. And after a short series of breathing exercises he slipped into a peaceful, tranquil sleep.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

He woke up _drenched_. 

He emerged mid-orgasm from the wettest wet dream he’d ever had, and so just had to lie there helplessly in the dark, unable to do anything to stop himself from coming. All he managed to do was slow it down so he felt every inch of its progress up his cock, the pleasurable-painful stretching sensation as the ejaculation pushed up through his chest, his throat, his mouth and out onto his tongue where the capsules immediately snagged on one of his fangs and burst lavishly. 

The sperm rolled unstoppably out of his mouth along with a handful of drool to join what seemed like every other type of revolting body fluid he possessed - he was covered in cold sweat, he was bleeding profusely from three deep parallel slashes across his chest, and slime was everywhere, everywhere, thick and clinging.

He sat up shakily, swallowing what he could while staring down at his dripping chest in bewilderment. 

The bewilderment faded as memories of the dream engulfed him. Dark swirling water, stars overhead, and a stranger straddling his lap and kissing him intently before drawing away. The stranger smiled down at him with a mischievous toothy grin, leaned in as if to kiss him again and, when Piccolo opened his mouth to reciprocate, he just fucked him. Just joyfully, confidently pushed his cock down Piccolo’s wet, willing throat. Piccolo’s gradually unfurling cock followed suit, twisting along the whole length of the stranger’s, who eagerly welcomed it into his mouth and into his body, deep, tight…

For a second he was astonished that his mind had managed to produce something so vivid – blurry in parts, but so full of crisp detail from the chill of the water, to the weight of the body on top of him, to the taste of the stranger’s mouth. And not only vivid, but original – this was not the careful lovemaking in dappled sunshine he was now exceedingly familiar with from his many re-reads of _Raindrop Beneath the Forest Canopy_. Then he realised it wasn’t just a dream; it was a memory. Someone in his psyche had actually done that –Nail, in fact. He had seen through Nail’s eyes for a second and shared a private moment he’d had with a lover a long time ago as clearly as if it was today.

Piccolo wiped his mouth on the back of his hands as he came back to reality, and all that entailed. He eased himself off the couch before he dripped anything else on to it and then swept a frantic glance around the room. He breathed out in relief when he registered he was safely alone. Had he always been alone, though, or had Dende joined him for the night and then discreetly slipped away when he became aware of what was going on in Piccolo’s head? Piccolo deliberately didn’t search for Dende’s energy to check; better not to know if he was awake or asleep. Instead he ripped his sopping clothes from his body with one business-like pull and incinerated both them and the various cushions and sheets he’d ruined in one small, quiet blast of energy. He then materialised brand new copies out of thin air and, pulling his cloak around himself, strode out into the night and up into the air, heading for somewhere secluded and far, far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Next time: awkward introspection guest-starring Son Gohan.


	4. Self

Fuck Nail.

That was the new mantra he’d developed over the last few hours, as he paced up and down a chilly shingle beach next to a grey sea that had struck him as the place that matched his psyche right now.

Fuck him, and his mysterious boyfriends, and all the enthusiastic sex they’d had, and all the memories of all those encounters that were hidden in Piccolo’s brain like landmines, waiting for him to trigger them with one false step and make a complete fool of himself. Wasn’t there anything he could to do get some peace?

He couldn’t meditate in peace.

He couldn’t train in peace.

Could he not even _sleep_ without his brain obsessively conjuring up images of fangs and claws and rippling green skin? Because on the tail of that dream, he could feel all kinds of long forgotten encounters from Nail’s memories hanging just below the surface – lying back on crushed blue grass with teeth digging into his shoulder, tracing a clawtip along the red ridge of a partner’s spine, wet desperate kisses in the dark… 

And all so frank, and impulsive, and rough and exactly _not what he was ready for_ right now. And if hyper realistic thoughts of it were just going to ambush him when he was at his most vulnerable then he would just never sleep again.

He sank down on a rock, set his head in his hands and stared out to sea, mentally matching his internal chant of Fuck Nail to the sound of the waves, and become so quietly engrossed in it (it was a message he could ready get behind) that he nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of someone landing beside him.

“Gohan,” he grunted.

“Hi,” he said. He had that slightly awkward over-cheerful look he had learned from his father.

Piccolo stared at him levelly for a few seconds, and then decided there was no point avoiding it. It was very unlikely that Gohan would have detected his energy all the way out here unless he’d specifically gone looking for it.

“Did Dende send you?” 

“Yep.”

Oh, hell. So Dende had been awake. Who knows what unconscious imagery he’d telepathically shouted in his sleep. “What did he say?”

“That you were struggling with some stuff that you probably wouldn’t want to talk about, but that maybe you would appreciate some company, and you’d probably prefer if it wasn’t him right now.”

“That about sums it up.”

“He didn’t say what happened, but he did say he hadn’t just meant to just let you go, but you left so abruptly. What did happen?”

“Please don’t ask. It’s too stupid.”

“Right. And this stuff you’re struggling with? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Gohan drummed his hands on his knees. “Do you want to spar?”

“Yes. Yes, I really would,” Piccolo said, looking up at last. “Just…go easy on my right shoulder.”

\--------------------

Sparring was good. Fighting was what his body was actually for, and it fought well. Everything worked smoothly; his muscles, his mind, his ki were all overlaid precisely, complementing and enhancing each other. 

He fought with a mindless focus, not caring that Gohan was going easy on him - that Gohan was in fact being rather distracted on top of having been generally lazy with his training recently, and was only maintaining his upper hand by his sheer, unmatchable power. 

They caught each other’s blows and deflected each other’s shots with an easy training rhythm, until Piccolo was contentedly exhausted and gave the signal so they could descend to the beach and catch their breath.

After a long, companionable silence, staring out at the waves and acutely aware that Gohan was shooting inquisitive, encouraging looks at him, Piccolo conceded:

“This is kind of your fault.”

“My fault? How?”

“Because the last time I was babysitting your daughter she fell asleep with her tiny little hand clasped around my finger and I seriously considered kidnapping her, running away to the wilderness, training her in the arts of the Demon Clan, and raising her as my heir.” 

“I’m glad you didn’t; my mom would have absolutely murdered you this time,” Gohan said. “Are you…thinking about being a dad, then?” At Piccolo’s silence he added. “That’s not something you should worry about. It’ll be a big change for you but, well, you’ve always been a great father figure to me. I don’t know what I would have done without you”

“Thanks,” Piccolo said gruffly. “But fatherhood isn’t really my issue right this instant. It’s…everything else. I can’t just have a child by myself, you know,” he added, aggrieved - this was still something of a sore point with him. Gohan made an encouraging noise, so he went on, “It seems like just vaguely entertaining the idea of reproducing has shoved open a whole Pandora’s box of things I didn’t even know my body could want. Like my brain has gone haywire, and all of my focus and discipline and all kinds of personal ideas about myself have just vanished into thin air. I’m going a little bit mad here, Gohan - some of these thoughts aren’t even mine, for hell’s sake. I’ve been dreaming Nail’s memories, things that he would not want me to see and I don’t want to be shown,” Piccolo glared into space. “No wonder fusion’s a forbidden art. If I’d known the stuff he’d be bringing into my mind, I never would have let him in.”

“You mean you’re seeing… kind of… personal things from his memories?”

“I mean, Gohan, like a pretty huge amount of excitable fucking with an array of men I’ve never even met.” Piccolo felt a perverse sort of pleasure in the fact that Gohan immediately went red to the ears, and so continued in the same frank vein, “I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg, but I’m sure I’ll be treated to plenty more of it when I try and sleep tonight. Here I thought I was a chaste warrior devoted to battle and shunning my baser emotions; turns out I’ve probably screwed my way through half of Namek in a former life.”

“That wasn’t you, Piccolo.”

“It wasn’t, no, but if I give in to this obsessive track my mind is running along it will be. I never saw myself like that.”

“You don’t have to repeat Nail’s life. You can have things on your own terms.”

“My terms were that I don’t want any of this.”

Gohan side-eyed him. “Is it really so bad?”

“Yes, it is. Human sex is disgusting – no offence-”

“None taken.”

“But it’s frankly a little less awful than what I have to go through.”

“Really? I mean, Namekians aren’t that different to humans, deep down. Everything’s in different places, and both partners have to play both roles, but it’s pretty much the same mechanics to transfer genetic information,” (an exceedingly Gohan way to say it, Piccolo thought) “from one person to another. And I guess that like with us, it can be pretty visceral, basic, instinctual….but it’s not disgusting because of that.”

Piccolo narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “How are you an authority on Namekian reproduction?”

“Because Dende and I grew up together.”

Piccolo felt faintly scandalised that Dende had explained even the basic mechanics of it all to someone else; it seemed like a shameful secret that should have been kept within the species.

“There was a time in my life where I thought I’d never be interested either – that I’d enjoy a simple life of books, training and hanging out with my Mom…but then things changed and I met Videl.” Gohan continued, looking faintly pink around the edges, “Sex is kind of…I wouldn’t say _disgusting_ …but, well, unappealing if you think about the raw mechanics of it. But, then, when I’m actually in the moment it’s not like that at all. I feel so close to Videl. It’s beautiful.”

“Yes, well. I think I’m old enough to have done most of my growing and changing.” 

“But you’re not actually much older than I am.”

Piccolo looked at him narrowly. “Don’t play that card. I’ve been an adult since before you were born.”

“Exactly. You skipped adolescence and all the stuff the rest of us had to go through. Maybe you’re just doing it now,” Gohan shrugged, then grinned at him. “Maybe your awkward Great Saiyaman phase is just around the corner.” 

“How _dare_ you.”

“I don’t entirely understand my biology either, sometimes. I’ll never be entirely human, no matter how much like one I seem. I kind of hate how naturally my body takes to fighting, it’s designed to be violent and that’s…not how I think of myself. But it’s me, and it’s part of who I am.” Gohan said. “I have no idea if that’s at all comparable to what you’re feeling. If I were you I’d try not resisting it for a bit, and just let yourself be guided by what you want rather than what you think you should want.”

Piccolo glared at him. “I prefer our friendship when I give you advice.”

They talked a little more after that and then Gohan left to get back to his work. Piccolo stared gloomily out to sea for a while and then, impulsively dropped straight from the cliff into the grey waves below, relishing the stinging slap as he broke the surface. He swam out for nearly half a mile in the opaque, grey water before he needed to surface for breath, and then lay floating on his back, letting the tide push him back in to shore.

He should be guided by what he wanted, rather than what he thought he should want.

What did he want?

He was embarrassed and wanted the whole world to leave him alone.

He was also lonely and wanted someone to unobtrusively look after him.

He was thirsty and wanted some fresh rainwater.

He was tired and wanted a deep sleep in a dark room.

He was still frustrated and he wanted….wanted…,well, he certainly didn’t want secondhand memories that felt real but weren’t.

He was uncomfortable in his skin and wanted some inner peace.

His back was sore again after sparring, and he wanted Dende’s cool, careful hands to rub it better.

His brain couldn’t seem to move past that one, so he settled into the feeling of the water, pretending that the pull and push of the waves against him was the comforting press of familiar hands against his skin, until his shoulders met rock and he realised the tide had pulled him right back in to the base of the cliff.

He wondered what Dende was thinking. Because Piccolo liked to pretend Namek didn’t exist, there was a whole part of Dende’s life there that he knew nothing about. He spent nearly all of his time on Earth, of course, but visited via Goku or the Dragonballs every month or so. He had a family, friends, and he’d certainly implied he had partners. Piccolo didn’t feel jealous particularly – a combination of a long lifespan and multiple-parent children meant that Namekians tended not to pair up exclusively like humans did after all – but Piccolo suddenly wished he could speculate who these lovers were. Gentle, passive, Dragon Clan boys, perhaps? Quiet encounters with studious young men with long robes and healing auras… But then again, Dende seemed to find him attractive, didn’t he? For all he knew, Dende fell into the arms of a different broad-shouldered, long-fanged warrior type everytime he went home, and had the kind of lovemaking that would put Nail to shame. Then he rolled his eyes at the way human social mores and ideas had clouded his view of his own species. Dende would be much more likely to have sordid encounters with sweet, petite Dragon Clan students, generally speaking, whose skills made them adept at loving and whose training made much more of a sensual ritual out of sex than the rough, rather perfunctory fucking that was the stereotypical fashion among warriors. They could get up to all kinds of things that Piccolo had never dreamed of. He had a brief, arresting image of Dende up to his shoulders in some quiet, tiled, temple pool, one innocent-looking priest-type sucking his tongue, another covering the back of his neck with bites and kisses. Piccolo shook that image out of his head.

However he considered the novel and intriguing subject of Dende’s love life he couldn’t imagine Dende being anything like the stranger in his dream. Dende would be careful, and would guide him. He imagined Dende, not straddling his thighs looming over him, but sat in his lap looking up at him, robes awry, face serious, eyes half-lidded, hands exploring Piccolo’s chest and arms and hips until he knew them the way he knew his back.

Piccolo found his own hands tracing the path up and down his shirt and, feeling slightly guilty, he pulled it down and carried on. His hands matched the slow, even pressure of Dende’s massage technique, across his bare chest, over his shoulders, and up to his neck where Dende never touched. He swallowed heavily as the first wave of arousal heated his jaw and wet his mouth.

Maybe Dende had done this while thinking about him. No matter what he had on Namek, most of Dende’s life was here on Earth. It probably wasn’t the most fulfilling experience to be trapped on an alien planet with one other of your kind, who you admired but who had never looked as you as anything more than a friend…. Perhaps he was lonely. Dende had supplied that copy of _Raindrop Beneath the Forest Canopy_ , after all. Maybe that had been his personal copy. Perhaps he’d sat idly leafing through it on lonely nights far from home. Maybe he’d pored over it, like Piccolo had, biting his lips, wishing that life would just present him with someone to love. Perhaps he craved touch, and comfort, and intimacy. He couldn’t have them with Piccolo on the terms he wanted them so was willing to accept them on the terms he was offered them, which had been precious little, Piccolo realised. He was apparently quite content to give Piccolo endless back rubs without any expectation of being offered reciprocal touch. Piccolo remembered his earlier little fantasy - would Dende be pleased if Piccolo offered to return the favour? He imagined them in the still, cool privacy of the Lookout’s back rooms, with his hands on the warm, bare skin of Dende’s back. Stroking his shoulders and sides. Caressing Dende’s neck like Piccolo was caressing his own right now. In fact, it’d feel even better, because of the oil…

After a second’s hesitation, Piccolo opened his mouth and licked a slick of slime into each palm and then stroked it wetly over his neck. The lack of friction made him shiver, and the strokes woke up his cock, which he could feel throbbing languidly in his throat. They would kiss like this, Piccolo imagined, and it wouldn’t matter that he was drooling messily and making desperate, longing hisses for breath around his cock because Dende would be just the same. The image of Dende in his lap pulling away from a kiss with his mouth and chin and chest glistening with moisture and his face full of the same longing Piccolo felt was fascinating, and awful and beautiful and he loathed himself for getting off on it.

His cock filled his mouth now, and he struggled to keep his jaws closed as he sucked and stroked it with his tongue, slime dripping from his lips. His thoughts flitted between a jumbled mess of scenes, some not of his own dreaming, but mostly returned to a familiar figure in his lap, familiar hands on his neck, familiar breath on his mouth until suddenly, startlingly, he came into his mouth. He swallowed most of it as best he could and then lay back lazily, letting the rest run down his chin with a mixture of afterglow and residual shame.

He wanted Dende.

It wasn’t what he thought he should want at all, but the fact was he really, really wanted it. 

He had no idea how he could do that without making a complete mess of everything, but maybe he didn’t need to know. 

He rose out of the sea as lightly as a bubble and then skimmed back to the Lookout through a dark, chilly sky flecked with cloud, listening to the wind in preference to his thoughts, feeling at peace with his body for the first time in months. He dropped onto the tiles of the platform and took a deep draught of the Lookout’s familiar scent: the perfume of lilies and of air pleasantly thin of oxygen. Then hesitated as his senses scanned through the quiet rooms and sleeping gardens.

He was alone.

He bit his lip in frustration with himself. Of course Dende wasn’t here. He’d told Piccolo himself that tonight was Night on Namek, and so that’s where he was right now. Living his other life with his family, and his friends, and his lovers in his home where Piccolo would always be an outsider.

For a second his self-assurance wavered and dimmed, but then he remembered…he _had_ been invited, too.

He centred his mind again to banish his doubts, and set of purposefully to the difficult, awkward, dreaded task of waking Son Goku deep in the middle of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Lighters in the air for REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling")
> 
> Two chapters to go, thanks for sticking with me this far. Next time: we're going to Namek...


	5. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate chapter! Please be assured that this chapter contains only the most minimal of distracting world building/alien culture/OC stuff; I’m here to write overthought character porn, not a Sci-Fi epic. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

Piccolo wasn’t too surprised to be unceremoniously dumped in the middle of a glassy green ocean and immediately abandoned. In order to get to Namek, he’d had to drag Goku out of what was apparently the deepest, soundest, most dreamless sleep achieved without drugs or a head injury. He had then done his best to explain what he wanted while fending off Chi Chi, who was intent on roundhouse kicking him in the face while voicing her strong opinions on the subject of unwelcome guests who broke into people’s bedrooms at four in the morning (where they had no right to be) to look at her, a respectable mother of two, in her nightdress (which they had no right to do). Goku had been so addled by the situation that Piccolo counted himself lucky he hadn’t been accidentally instant transmission-ed into the open void of space and left to suffocate.

He bobbed to the surface and, keeping his own energy low and hidden, headed for the north where it felt like most of the planet’s energy was gathered. Ahead, two suns were low on the horizon, the larger, higher one dazzling the other as it set so that it seemed to be shimmering out of existence in faint rays of azure and purple.

He really didn’t want to talk to or even be seen by anyone but Dende, and for a moment quietly entertained the possibility of slipping in among them all unnoticed. After all, it would be dark, wouldn’t it? And for once, being bright green with claws and antennae was a good way of fitting in. However, realistically he knew that in a community of only a few hundred people an outsider would be noticed sooner or later, especially one that literally stood head and shoulders above every one else. Still, he slowed his pace as he approached the crowded energy, letting the light dim and the shadows lengthen so that as he approached the mountain ridge where everyone had gathered it was real twilight. He was surprised to sense so many warriors ahead, although after a moment he realised they were mostly very young; it seemed after surviving Frieza the Warrior Clan had become more of a priority for the next generation.

He was also surprised to see how, well, beautiful Namek could be. True, during his previous visits sight-seeing had been rather less of a priority, what with all the intergalactic dictators and not getting murdered to worry about. However what he did recall of the scenery was rather underwhelming: thin vegetation on dusty soil, vast expanses of featureless sea, and not much else. But here the mountains rising to meet him were young and dramatic, as sharply cragged as if they had pushed out of the ground yesterday and never felt a touch of wind or rain. The knife-edge ridge that ran through them like a spine was rimed with transparent green glaciers that reflected and refracted every shade of the setting suns to pale auroras. It was beautiful.

He alighted on a crag slightly away from where it seemed the majority had gathered in order to take a moment to centre himself. He didn’t know what he was going to say to Dende, but at least he could say it calmly, without looking like he had missed the bus and sprinted all the way here. Besides, as he _was_ here for it he might as well play along and watch the smaller sun set entirely. He had a feeling he would be too distracted to appreciate the complete setting of the final sun.

As he sat and waited on the cliff edge, an extremely small child hovered past with all the grace and speed of a helium balloon with a slow puncture. It made towards Piccolo as if making for a lifebuoy, and Piccolo plucked it out of the air and set it down on the rock beside him, where it sat catching its breath and patting his kneecap in mute thanks.

They sat in companionable silence for a short while, then the child’s head suddenly swivelled round like a owl’s and it turned such an intense, furious glare on him that Piccolo thought he’d been unmasked as an intruder. But then, when Piccolo met the glare with his own default frown, the child nodded, turned back to the sun and resumed kicking its heels in apparent contentment. Piccolo realised that 'furious glare' was just its default expression and breathed easy again.

Shortly a man appeared looking slightly flustered and then grinned appreciatively as Piccolo held out the toddler.

“Thank you, brother,” he said and, tucking his baby under his arm, floated casually back where he’d came from.

Piccolo felt like he’d passed a test of some kind.

There was an abrupt change in the sky as the lower sun slipped out of sight, leaving a single sun hanging low on the horizon, uplighting the clouds that ringed it in vivid red. Piccolo felt a wave of energy from the unseen crowds nearby and for a second, could appreciate what a rare, alien image this was to the rest of them: a single sun in a blackening sky and the first pinpricks of stars appearing above them. Then the feeling faded, and Piccolo was left with the comforting illusion of how much more this unfamiliar planet felt and looked like Earth.

Thinking of Earth, he cast his mind out. He immediately spotted the sole familiar energy signal and, with a deep breath, set off to find Dende, who was on a nearby ridge surrounded by people. He still had nothing at all to say, but hoped that just being present would be enough. As he got closer, a hundred tiny suppressed worries needled at him – that he was intruding, that he would be unwelcome, that he would draw attention to himself and somehow spoil this ceremony, that Dende would be laughingly arm in arm with some experienced lover and not be at all pleased to see him... Then he caught sight of the family: Moori, looking unchanged from the last time Piccolo had seen him; Cargo now tall and leggy, with unusually long antennae, and finally Dende looking incongruously exactly as he always did despite being in such unfamiliar surroundings. Piccolo dropped down lightly behind them before he could change his mind.

Dende turned to glance at him, and whatever reaction Piccolo thought he was expecting, he was surprised that Dende really didn’t look wholly pleased to see him – in fact, as Piccolo stepped silently next to him, he thought Dende actually looked a little spooked. 

Piccolo understood why when he realised he was being stared at over the top of Dende’s head by someone else, though it took a moment to realise it was _him_. _The_ stranger from _the_ dream. Nail’s saucily grinning friend who liked it rough. Piccolo couldn’t have been more astonished if he’d bumped into Nail himself. It was stupid, but he thought of Nail’s life, and Nail’s story, and Nail’s friends as over, gone, ancient history, all finished with the destruction of Old Namek and the death of Guru. Seeing this stranger’s familiar face was like seeing someone back from the dead.

Piccolo was subconsciously expecting another grin from him, but the man had stopped smiling when he saw Piccolo, and was instead staring openly at him, neither friendly nor hostile. Piccolo actually found his open scrutiny more comfortable than the politely feigned disinterest that everyone else around him had immediately adopted. The stranger’s gaze took in his whole body, but focused most on his face, searching, obviously looking for traces of anything familiar. It seemed he didn’t find it because he said:

“Good to see you here, Piccolo.”

“Thank you-” Piccolo began and was startled when his subconscious provided the name and it came out automatically, “-Limax.” This caused something not unlike the expected grin to cross the man’s face, though it was much more guarded, and Piccolo swore internally. This was exactly _not_ what he had wanted to happen today. Of all Nail’s old comrades that he did not want to meet, he especially did not want to meet this one, and especially not in a manner that said “hey, didn’t we used to bang?”. His first impulse was just to turn back around, head back towards the sea and wait for the next lift back to Earth because this was all going wrong already, but instead he schooled his features into their typical _and-you-can-fuck-off_ formation to glare Limax down. He automatically tested Limax's energy signal as he did so, and was reasonably impressed at how much stronger he was than in Nail’s memories. He was no great shakes in the grand scheme of things that included Saiyans; he was slightly above Tienshinhan, perhaps, but that was more than he expected from a fellow Namekian. Again, it seemed that being slaughtered by Freiza had been a motivating experience. 

He could feel Limax doing the same back to him, and was again impressed that he looked as though he was more intrigued than intimidated.

That still didn't explain what he was doing here, though. He glanced at Dende, who seemed to have both recovered from his surprise and smoothly moved out from between Piccolo and Limax. Dende met his gaze innocently and said, “I’m glad you could join us.”

They didn’t get any further than that because at that moment the whole sky went pink with the final rays of the largest sun, and even Piccolo, who had been rather spoilt for sunsets in the grand scheme of things, forgot everything to watch the splendour of the final sun rolling beneath the horizon in a blaze of fire. The moons above them seemed to swell in the sky from faint impressions to fierce, searing neon as the full blackness of night swept over the mountains. 

Most people around them went into an immediate trance in the pleasant, unfamiliar chill and darkness, and Piccolo felt himself dragged against his will into the telepathic equivalent of a great big, cosy group-hug. He extracted himself slowly and with difficulty – although he was certainly the strongest warrior, there were many, many stronger psychics than him here – and did the mental equivalent of brushing himself down like a cat after an unwanted bath. This was one of the many things he didn’t take to about his people’s culture: they were all so sharing, caring, chummily co-dependent. He supposed it made sense in a closed community consisting of one seriously extended single family to be all up in each other’s business, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

He wrenched his eyes open and glanced around the standing sleepers surrounding him in the dark, and realised that Dende had vanished. The only other person who seemed awake was Limax who was still staring at him, leaning casually against the cliff with his arms folded in a gesture Piccolo half remembered, this stranger who wasn’t a stranger.

Limax looked like he was thinking a lot of things, but all he said was, “ _how?_ ”

“How what?”

“How are you _that_ much stronger?” Limax spoke in a low voice so as not to disturb the people around them. “I remember you being stupidly strong when I was on Earth, and I’d heard you’d got stronger, but it's like your power’s just gone off the scale since then.”

“I was only at half my potential power back then. And I train with a strong crowd.”

“No fucking kidding,” Limax said, still openly looking him over …and oh god, this was happening. Piccolo was not good at telling if people were flirting with him, but the calculating way this man was smiling at him was almost like the way you smile at someone before a fight, just with all of the challenge but none of the threat. It didn’t help that the man had a set of teeth like a shark on him, making all his expressions rather predatory. “As you can maybe tell, we’ve been trying to build the Warrior Clan back up and I’ve been part of the vanguard for that. The Dragon Balls aren’t a secret anymore and we need to be able to protect ourselves and them from the madmen they attract. I thought we weren’t doing too badly but, now you’ve shown up, I realise we have way more potential than we’re harnessing right now.” He drummed his fingers thoughtfully against his crossed arms, then asked, “what kept you away all this time, anyway?” He sounded curious rather than hostile, but Piccolo responded as if it were a challenge anyway.

“Nothing kept me away, I just didn’t have a reason to be here. It’s not my home. I’m not Nail.”

“I can see that,” Limax said. “Nail…,” he added musingly. “I’ve never really forgiven Nail for…doing what he did, and not just because I lost my friend. We’ve missed him in a thousand ways since. Shit with the Warrior Clan’s been hard without him; he was the best of us. So much strength and skill and knowledge and art that we need, and he gave it all to you… and it’s probably just a drop in the ocean to you anyway.” His smile faltered for a second, but reappeared immediately. “Still, it seems he’s not entirely gone if you remember me. I take it you _do_ remember me?”

Piccolo gave the most minimal nod he could manage. “Nail knew you pretty well.”

Limax smiled at the diplomatic answer, then cocked his head and Piccolo bridled at the interest he could feel radiating off of him. “Then I guess you have me at a disadvantage, then, because I don’t know you at all.”

“And you won’t,” Piccolo said, automatically shutting _that_ line of conversation down.

“Won’t I? Well, fuck it,” and so saying he suddenly became unnervingly serious, “I shouldn’t say anything, because everyone including the Grand Elder seems to think that you did enough for us and we’ve no right to ask you for anything else, but who knows if or when you’ll show up again? So I’ll say it – we could use your help sometime. The new Warrior Clan is only a shadow of what it could have been with Nail’s guidance and we need to get stronger.”

“Yeah, that’d be Nail you want,” Piccolo said, cutting him off gruffly, “and I’m still not him.”

Limax gave him a final measuring gaze, and then his seriousness dropped. “True, Nail wasn’t half that asshole you are,” he said with a sharkish smile and a shrug. “Ah well, I’ve said it. If there's any tiny, little gleam of his honour and selflessness left in you, maybe you can think about it. Anyway don’t be a stranger. Come back and fight me sometime,” and with that, he closed his eyes and sank immediately, easily into the communal trance and was suddenly as remote and unreachable as if he’d teleported a thousand miles away.

Piccolo glared at Limax's uncomprehending, sleeping face and then turned on his heel. He strode away, irritated on several levels at first being flirted with, then held to task for something that was _not_ his responsibility, then insulted, then flirted with, then fucking dismissed before he could even get an answer back. The worst part was, he knew he was being played, but he still felt a little like he did have something to prove. Besides, he couldn’t help but have a little bit of respect for Limax’s directness. Between that and the transparent, unguarded interest radiating off him, it certainly seemed that he hadn’t got any shyer in the intervening years. Piccolo realised that, if he did just want an easy screw to get it over with then evidently that was something that was entirely possible without too much work. He could be merrily churning out eggs by teatime if he wanted. He was surprised how little appeal the idea still held.

He went to look for Dende.

He found Dende in a crowd who had moved round the mountain to follow the sunrise. He was in amidst his family, actually leaning on Cargo’s shoulder and looking quite small next to him. They were sat close to the cliff edge, staring out into the ocean where the faintest, faint pink glow showed where the sun was waiting. Now Piccolo really did feel like he would be intruding. Coming to Namek had, as he grimly expected, been a mistake. He decided he was done with talking to anyone, or dealing with anyone, or joining in with anything else that was happening until he was safely back on Earth. He made his way to a nicely isolated spire of rock, glaring at all the standing, entranced people on the way as if daring them to make a pass at him, set himself into the lotus position and switched his mind off entirely so that even the sunrise was dead to him.

He didn’t emerge until Goku tapped him on the shoulder, and be before he knew it, he, Goku and Dende were alone on the silent, windswept Lookout. 

Goku wasn’t the kind of tactful soul who could detect an atmosphere, but thankfully ChiChi still needed placating so he didn’t linger. As soon as they were alone together Dende gazed up at him with the most complete pokerface smile that Piccolo had seen since he asked his first questions weeks ago. All Dende’s thoughts and emotions and feelings towards Piccolo had been all carefully, tidily boxed up and packed away like the last few weeks hadn’t happened. “Thanks for joining us,” he said, and he held Piccolo’s gaze for a second, obviously meaning it, before he turned towards the door with a yawn. “I don’t know how their night always seems to fall into the middle of our night. I can’t wait to get some sleep.”

Piccolo followed him wordlessly, glad to get indoors.

“I’m glad you met Limax,” Dende said lightly. 

This was a bad opening. Piccolo was still feeling sore for being presented to the man he least wanted to talk to right now, and couldn't help but pull the thread of working out how that had happened. “Do you know him well?”

“No, just in passing and by reputation.” 

“And you just _happened_ to be talking to him today?”

Dende looked up at him calmly. “I didn’t seek him out; it was pure accident that I bumped into him. But having done that, yes, I took the opportunity to talk to him.”

“About what?”

“Just small talk to satisfy my own curiosity about what sort of man he is. And I like him; he seems a very focused, dedicated warrior without being too serious.” Piccolo just stared him down, so he continued, “I’m sorry if you think I took a liberty, but it’s not as though I tried to set you up – I could never have guessed you would join us. However, I’m glad I could introduce you.”

“Why on Earth do you think that’s a good thing?”

Dende finally became exasperated. “Because he’s the man you dream about, after all.” He weathered Piccolo’s glare with complete impunity. “I didn’t _look_ into your psyche to find that out.”

“He’s a complete stranger to me. Those are Nail’s memories.” Piccolo was almost shouting, he was so infuriated by everything; the complete calmness with which Dende seemed to have passed him over to this stranger, the clear morning full of cheerful birdsong, the pristine perfect whiteness of the Lookout – he had a rather _Daimao_ urge to smash a column or two. “I don’t want any of this.”

“You’re acting as though this is some dreadful development in an overarching scheme to ruin you.” Dende said, slowly as if he were speaking to a child. “Piccolo, this is a _good_ thing. Sex, and relationships, and intimacy, and parenthood aren’t a weakness. They’re a wonderful part of life and I’m so glad for you that you are ready to explore that side of yourself after so long. I have no idea if Limax is the right person to explore it with, but what’s the harm in you finding out? You don’t have to rush headlong in anything you aren’t sure about, but you don’t have to fight it every step of the way. You don’t have to make everything into a battle.”

“I’m not fighting it,” Piccolo said levelly, though with a distinct growl. “I’m just not going to be fobbed off to some random friend of Nail’s.”

“Well, that’s fine. It could be anyone.”

“I don’t want just anyone.”

“Piccolo, don’t be obtuse. I think it’s fair to say that right now you don’t know what you want.”

Piccolo saw his opening and still hesitated, nearly letting it pass.

But it he said it. He said:

“I want you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: final chapter. Thanks for your support!


	6. Full Circle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are: the final chapter as we come (title drop)...full circle. I really can't wait to see AO3's little green 'story complete' tick on this one. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me for Piccolo's rough ride through puberty. Hope you enjoy this conclusion.

“I want you”.

That stopped Dende mid-sentence. “ _Me?_ ” he said, sounding completely baffled, actually pointing at himself for clarity.

“Yes, you.”

Dende froze for a moment then approached him slowly, eyes searching his face. “Really?”

“Why do you think I even went to Namek in the first place?”

“Oh,” Dende said, his eyes suddenly bright. He clasped Piccolo’s wrists gently. “I’m so glad. I really thought…” and then trailed off shaking his head, and smiled at him.

Piccolo felt all the more unsure when he saw that smile. _I can’t live up to whatever you want from me_ , he thought, and nearly stepped back when Dende leaned up with the obvious intention of touching his antennae tips to Piccolo’s. 

He realised his face-of-granite skills were failing him yet again, because Dende looked up at him, all trust and empathy and said, “please let me in, just a little. I don’t want to get this wrong for you.”

Piccolo hesitated – he really did not want to share any of the anxieties and insecurities that were swirling around his head, but knew it was pointless to pretend to Dende that he was anything other than uncertain. He dropped his turban to one side and did it. They both tightened their grip on each other’s arms at the warm hum of feeling that stuttered between them. Dende was pleased, and excited…but, to Piccolo’s relief, he was nervous too. His overwhelming first thought was a combination of ‘ _ME!_ ’ and ‘ _don’t mess this up_ ’.

Piccolo could pick through a jumble of memories. The long, dispiriting feeling of being overlooked. Then the shy, secret hope that grew as Piccolo first confided in him and then requested his touch, and then learned to relax into it, and then enjoy it, and then crave it. A lifetime of repressed affection slowly seeing light for the first time. The stunned high of waking next to Piccolo and finding him in throes of ecstasy and then the crushing low of realising that it was nothing at all to do with him, and leaving his own house so as not to intrude. Then coming face to face with the warrior he had seen in Piccolo’s dreams and seeing that he was exactly the kind of man Dende wasn’t. Followed almost immediately by feeling the tension and chemistry between Piccolo and his dream lover, and knowing, again, that he was irrelevant and should leave. No wonder 'stunned' was the flavour of Dende's mind right now. 

What was really surprising to Piccolo was seeing himself through the eyes of someone who thought he was, well, _hot_. That was a new and interesting concept. Over his lifetime he'd gradually come to understand being loved platonically, as a reliable caregiver and a friend, and there was a lot of that in Dende's mind too, but there was also just a startlingly basic attraction. Piccolo had known that he was well built, at least, and had suspected he was good-looking…he had considered his reflection and expected that someone, somewhere should find it pleasing, but accepted it as irrelevant because none of those people were in a million mile radius – or so he thought. One person had been quietly appreciating the curve of his jawline, the cut of his obliques, the breadth of his shoulders, the low pitch of his voice, the serious face he made while he meditated…and he didn’t just find them aesthetically satisfying, he found them fascinating. This was new.

They parted breathing deeply, and spent a quiet moment dazedly sorting their memories back into place.

“I put you through the wringer, didn’t I,” Piccolo said. “Sorry.”

Dende looked up at him, still rather wide eyed, making Piccolo wonder what he’d seen in his brain. “You seem to have rather gone through it yourself.” 

Piccolo shifted his hands to Dende’s shoulders, and was intrigued to feel that he was…well, not quite trembling, but restless under his hands – his shoulders shifting with repressed tension, kindling a familiar fantasy. “Well,” he said, relieved to have something of a plan to follow, “at the very least, I owe you a backrub.”

“Oh! If you’re happy to…” Dende said, still looking stunned. “Yes. Yes, please.” And with that Dende pulled off his ruffled collar and started work undoing the minute pearl buttons on the back of his robe until he could slip it over his shoulders to his elbows, and then settled down on a couch rather self consciously.

Piccolo didn’t get a lot of chances to look at his own back and found himself studying Dende’s with appreciation and interest. He followed the contour lines of ridges, enjoying the look of his hands against Dende’s slightly brighter green. His skin felt nice: thick and smooth and waxy.

“That’s nice,” Dende said, as Piccolo’s hands moved uncertainly across his back. “Do my shoulders, please; yes, with your whole palm, not just your fingertips. Keep doing that, that’s nice.”

“You’re really tense,” Piccolo said in surprise, feeling Dende’s muscles twitch.

Dende laughed, and Piccolo felt it shake through his shoulders. “Quite a surprising day all together. Besides, being god is a lot of responsibility sometimes.”

“You do a good job.”

“To be honest, I feel rather under qualified for it sometimes but in a lot of ways the humans and animals here don’t expect too much from the role.”

He lapsed into silence for a moment and then added:

“Your hands are strong,”

“Was that too much?”

“No, I like it."

Piccolo felt relieved at the praise and worked on, mirroring techniques that Dende had taught him, and feeling less and less resistance until Dende was quite satisfactorily melted, his breathing slow and heavy. He became so focused on the work that he didn’t properly realise that in working out the knots at the top of Dende’s shoulders he was actually rubbing Dende’s neck – his _neck_ \- until Dende made a soft little noise and peeked over his shoulder at Piccolo, rather wide-eyed.

“Sorry,” Piccolo said, backing off.

“No, it’s good,” Dende said, smiling sleepily. “I’ve wanted to do the same for you.” And with a surprisingly swift rearrangement of their positions he was suddenly up and half in Piccolo’s lap, looking simultaneously shy and eager. 

Several of Piccolo’s half-baked fantasies had started with Dende in his lap and so this - Dende blushingly glancing up at him while he hitched at the skirts of his robe to more comfortably straddle Piccolo’s thigh - this was the point that it really dawned on him that this was real, and this was happening, and they were actually going to do it. Do it. They were going to have sex. Drool. Slime. Claws. Sperm…Thankfully the moment he started to seize up was the same moment Dende tried to ease off Piccolo’s cloak with one hand, not knowing it was weighted. Piccolo couldn't help but smirk as Dende's expression turned from coy to complete bafflement as he failed to so much as shift it.

“What? What is this even made of?” he asked, resorting to both hands, before Piccolo tugged it off himself and let it drop the floor with a pleasantly dramatic slam.

“It’s weighted training gear.”

“You’re literally carrying a dead weight across your shoulders all day every day,” Dende said deadpan, then laughed. “It’s a complete mystery why your back hurts so much.” He took Piccolo’s shoulders in his hands, squeezing them deftly in circles before hooking his thumbs into Piccolo’s shirt and gently pulling down to his elbows. Carefully checking Piccolo’s expression the whole while, he then lightly pressed his palms to Piccolo’s chest. He started to stroke up and down in the familiar rhythm of his massage technique, the warm ripple of healing magic making Piccolo relax almost against his will. 

“I’ve wanted to touch you here, like this,” Dende said. 

“I’ve wanted to touch you too,” Piccolo said, voice low, almost whispering. “I’ve wanted to have you in my lap like this.”

“Really?” Dende said looking pleased and leaning closer. “You can touch me,” he said, as his hands started to roam upwards to Piccolo’s throat. Piccolo did, but with misgivings as this was where Dende’s experience started to show. He knew exactly how to stroke Piccolo’s neck – up his throat, along his jaw, under and behind his ears – and Piccolo couldn't help but be unsettled by the power Dende suddenly had over him. Gradually, however, Piccolo began to copy the movements, and studied the change in Dende’s face – watching his eyes growing half lidded and serious under his brows, his cheeks flushing slightly, the purple tip of his tongue peeking out to moisten his lips. He knew his own cheeks must be pretty dark, they certainly felt hot. His breaths were coming deeper. His skin felt so sensitive that Dende’s claws seemed to drag over it. And, fuck, he was getting wet. Just a little. Just enough to make him self-conscious to swallow. Just enough to make him want to kiss Dende right now to see whether he was too.

He hesitated, stroking Dende’s neck and drinking in his look of open lust. He felt lust himself, real, strong, stupid, dumb, delicious lust. There was no going back once they kissed, he realised, they were going to do it, fucking do it. He was still surprised by himself that he wanted it, though that even as he was thinking about it he was leaning forward, gradually dropping his chin, hoping that Dende would take the initiative and spare him from revealing he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

Dende obligingly did, rising up on his knees, wrapping one arm round Piccolo’s shoulders and clasping Piccolo’s jaw still with the other so he could easily move in close. Piccolo closed his eyes and, barely breathing, allowed himself to be kissed. Dende kissed him lightly, drew away and then pulled him close again, and Piccolo quickly became nervous, because in between focussing on how to move his head, and how to meet Dende’s movements, and where to put his hands, he didn’t really _feel_ anything other than the literal sensation of a mouth pressing against his own. Wasn’t kissing supposed to feel like fireworks and trumpets? Was something wrong with him?

“Relax, relax,” Dende murmured as if reading his mind. Patiently, slowly, he teased Piccolo’s mouth open for a series of lingering, shallow kisses, just enough so that Piccolo could taste him, taste he was wet, and this time as they broke apart, Piccolo instinctively pulled him back for more.

Soon he was pressing Dende back against the couch, hanging over him, kissing him soundly while Dende’s hands roamed over his chest and back and sides. This was what he wanted. In fact, a few moments of that were enough to galvanise Piccolo’s resolve. He gathered Dende up in his arms – he weighed nothing at all and could be carried easily with one hand round his hips– and strode towards the staircase that led to the hidden labyrinth deep inside the Lookout. He had Kami’s knowledge of the place, so marched easily through the tiled corridors, bypassing dozens of doors to strange and dangerous dimensions, knowing exactly where he was going. He wondered if Dende knew too; he was pressed up against Piccolo, breathing hotly into the crook of Piccolo’s neck with one arm round his shoulder and the other against his chest. As they got closer to their destination, the firm strokes of Dende’s hand over his pectorals gained more and more _claws_ , so that when they reached the doorway they were looking for, Piccolo could scent the first trace of his own blood. 

The doorway led into a cool, dark hall, with ferns curling up around his legs and mist rising in coils. A few shafts of pale pink light broke in through the dripping ceiling, and heavy white flowers had burst out wherever they hit the foliage. Far ahead was a deep pool of almost opaque black water, spread with lotus leaves, and behind that a small shrine, festooned with chains and dozens of arrestingly immense padlocks, all now long rusted and overgrown – something significant had happened here once, but now it was a tranquil, secluded, secret place.

“Oh, how interesting,” Dende said, as Piccolo set him down. He strode through the wet undergrowth letting the fern fronds run through his fingers, to the edge of the pool and stared at the shrine. “In all the years I’ve lived here, I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface of the secrets of this place.” Piccolo was momentarily worried – he was still relying on momentum, and the distraction was enough for him to start questioning himself. What now? How did you start this off? Like, to name just one of the many things he had no idea about, was he supposed to take his shoes off before they got in the water? He felt annoyed at Nail again - if his explicit memories were going to play themselves unbidden in his mind they could have at least included a few more practical details along with all the relentless screwing.

Thankfully, Dende wasn’t distracted for long. Paying absolutely no attention to his shoes at all, he stepped lightly down the stone stairs that led into the pool, letting his robes float up around him, and then turned and held out his hand to Piccolo. Piccolo paused, wanting to remember this image: Dende thigh-deep in the water, Kami robes hanging loose off his shoulders, gazing up at him, reaching out for him. Then he took his hand and allowed himself to be pulled into the warm, still pool, tugging Dende close to him as they sank in it up their shoulders. 

He leaned in slowly, hungry for the taste of Dende’s mouth again, and was gratified to feel how wet he was, too. This time it wasn’t just the taste; as their kisses became deeper and heavier and he filled Dende’s mouth with his tongue, he could feel the thick, oozing slime mixing between them, could feel how badly Dende wanted him, how slippery his mouth was, how ready for him. Dende eased his tongue into Piccolo’s mouth rather more gently, gripping his neck with his claws all the while, and licked the roof of his mouth all the way back to his throat almost to his cock. Piccolo shivered with the wave of arousal that immediately pulsed through him as he realised how wet he was himself – soaking wet, sluttishly wet, ‘fuck me now’ wet, and he didn’t even care. In fact, the way Dende looked at him as they broke apart – a long, dripping strand of slime stretched between their wet mouths – made him not care about anything. 

Dende lifted Piccolo’s chin up and kissed his throat just where his cock was starting to throb, teasing with his fangs, and Piccolo tensed automatically, digging in his claws before he could stop himself. He grinned as he felt Dende hiss “yessss” against his neck, and took the invitation to drag his nails hard down Dende’s back, ripping his robe through so it slid off his shoulders under the water. Dende responded by biting slowly down on his throat, healing the wound almost as soon as he pulled his canines out of it, and then leaned up to kiss him softly, sweetly, smilingly over his chin and mouth, along his jaw, before nipping his ear, then immediately healing it and moving back to his neck. The alternating pleasure and pain was driving Piccolo wild, so wild that he hardly dared reciprocate. It was the habit of a lifetime to battle against his bloodthirstiness, to deny the bestial part of his nature that had made him a Demon King a lifetime ago, that he daren’t fully give into it now. He stared down at Dende’s bloodstained mouth with want and envy. He dared to do nothing more than kiss the taste of his own blood, while his arms trembled around Dende with repressed strength and his cock throbbed up from his throat onto his slick tongue.

All of the things he thought he’d worry about – was he being to fast, was this too soon, was he drooling too much, was he looking too desperate – were still present, but he couldn’t focus on any of them, never mind do anything about them. He _knew_ he was looking desperate as he heaved for breath around his cock, he could feel drool dripping from his fangs as he struggled to keep his mouth shut, was aware his once reliably ‘locked and bolted’ psychic channels were starting to tear at the seams. It was hard to feel bad about making a spectacle of himself when his audience of one was so openly feasting their eyes on it. Dende pulled him close and kissed him deeply, indulgently; welcoming Piccolo’s cock into his mouth and meeting it with is own, letting them twist together, and then pushing further. Piccolo, letting himself be a slave to instinct and sensation, found his jaw opening automatically to receive it. 

Piccolo had wondered how he’d feel about this part, the ‘ _getting fucked_ ’ part that a lifetime of Earth culture and second-hand masculinity had given him some very mixed messages about. He realised, as his mouth was completely filled, that he felt _good_ about it. His jaw ached, and he was trembling with the effort of keeping his teeth out of the way, he was barely able to focus on the essentials of breathing and not drowning as his cock was sucked and teased from tip to root, but he felt good. He felt great. Things were happening in his torso that he’d never felt before; a deep ache in his chest, a pulse in his throat, a shock straight to his hindbrain that said, _yes, please, inside me now_ , and he had no wish to disobey it.

However, he paused as he felt Dende’s claws sink warningly into his biceps, and they stilled for a moment – cocks twisted together, mouths full of each other, hazy gazes locked together. 

_Can we?_ Dende said, telepathically, the words unfurling like an anemone blooming in Piccolo’s head with a question mark attached. 

A simple but emphatic _Yes_ was all Piccolo could manage. 

_You first; I want you to feel me._

Piccolo needed no further invitation; he was barely holding back as it was. His cock pushed eagerly forward over Dende’s wet tongue, into his throat and slipped deep, deep, down into his body. Over the last few days, in idle bouts of grim anxiety he’d wondered how he’d know where to go, and if he’d be the first Namekian so inept as to try and fuck his partner’s lungs. In practice it was easy; Dende’s body wanted him, guided him, pulled his cock down deeper, and deeper with rhythmic squeezes until it was perfectly in place. Piccolo trembled as he felt every inch of his own cock for the first time; he’d had no idea it could get this long, no idea it could feel this way …He realised every masturbatory impulse he’d ever indulged had been an attempt to mimic this feeling – this hot grasping completeness. 

The stayed like that for a moment, Dende breathing hard though his open mouth, his dazed eyes on Piccolo as he savoured it, until Piccolo felt like begging Dende the way his own body was begging him. 

Finally, Piccolo felt his whole body tremble with anticipation as Dende’s cock writhed into his throat, and he swallowed it greedily. His jumbled thoughts became suddenly clear, as all his focus returned to his own body, watching and feeling as Dende slowly eased open a path deep down inside him in his body; a path that had been so closed he’d barely known it had existed. With each inch, Piccolo felt that surely this was it, surely it couldn’t go any deeper, but it did, and it did, and it did. It was so tight and tense that it hurt, but it also felt good, and right, and necessary, and natural and how had he waited his whole life to do this? How had he not gone mad, denying this, not knowing this, not listening to himself? How had he used his body only as a weapon all these years? How had-, how had he -, how-… 

His conscious thoughts evaporated as he gradually felt something inside him open painfully, beautifully. The female part of his body was now demanding his full attention for the first time after sitting in long-suffering silence all these years, and, and it was a revelation. Piccolo melted into it, feeling a continuous line of pleasure that started from the tip of his cock inside Dende’s body and ran along it all the way along, through their linked mouths to the tip of Dende’s cock inside his own body. 

He held onto that for only a moment before he lost his grip on himself and was completely overtaken by his orgasm - a blurred rush of sensation and instinct that started in his chest and ran up, up through every inch of his cock and down into Dende. He felt the familiar numbing sensation that always immediately followed a hard orgasm. Usually this was an unwelcome bump back down to reality, but here it allowed him to follow, with an unexpectedly clear head, the progress of Dende’s cock expanding with a slow stretch inside of him, bigger and bigger, inevitable and unstoppable. Just as it seemed he couldn’t get any fuller, just as his grip on Dende’s arms finally broke the skin, there was a sudden rush of release, and abruptly they were messily sliding out of one another. 

While feeling a little stunned at the sudden uncoupling, Piccolo couldn’t help but appreciate how exquisitely, prettily dishevelled Dende looked – mouth wet, lip bitten, shoulders scratched, chin dripping, eyes heavy, gaze hot, and altogether looking like he had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was gradually sinking into the water though, as the ki he was using to keep him steadily afloat started to flag. Piccolo pulled him close and walked them to the edge of the pool, until they were sat in a dripping heap on the grass. Dende settled his head into the crook of Piccolo’s neck and lazily looped his arms around his big shoulders while he caught his breath, and murmured in a small, tired, happy voice: ‘thank you’. 

Piccolo was too tired to work out a response to that. He wanted to say thank you as well: thank you for your patience, thank you for your trust, thank you for respecting my wishes when they were so mixed up even I didn't understand them...but it was all too complicated, so he just pressed his face to the top of Dende’s head and breathed deeply, letting some of the things he couldn't say leak out telepathically. They lay in contented silence for a spell, gradually drying off, almost falling asleep until Piccolo suddenly sat up with an exclamation. 

“What?” Dende blinked up at him, sleep befuddled. 

“I...I know how to lay an egg,” Piccolo said with dull surprise. It was suddenly obvious to him, as obvious and as inexplicable as making himself breathe or making his heart beat. His body had apparently known all along how to do it, and now it was possible, it was quite willing to. That knowledge was strangely soothing, but he was momentarily appalled that he’d blurted it out. First of all - loudly proclaiming mastery of basic bodily functions: who actually does that? And secondly, it seemed a bit heavy to discuss having children mere minutes after a rather impulsive and unplanned bout of sex. 

Dende didn’t look remotely fussed, however – after all, even if Piccolo laid an egg then and there it would be considered only Piccolo’s son, even if all the other genetic contributors could be absolutely identified by dint of there being only one candidate. All Dende said was, “Oh, good,” before contentedly nestling his head back into the thickest part of Piccolo’s shoulder. He laughed a little, and added, “congratulations.” 

“Don’t you tease me,” Piccolo said, stroking his back. 

“I have to be able to tease you a little,” Dende said. “My only other option is to fawn all over you in a manner I’m sure you’ll find quite nauseating.” 

“Go ahead and tease then.” 

Dende looked up at him smugly and said, “I can’t believe it was you who took my book.” 

Piccolo open and shut his mouth for a few seconds before managing, “that is a total misuse of your psychic powers.” 

“Isn’t it,” Dende agreed, and then kissed Piccolo until he didn’t really mind anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who made it to the finish, especially if you left a comment or a kudos along the way. I took a long, long break from writing fanfiction until this year, so this is actually my first multi-chapter fic in years. All your encouragement has been much appreciated, and any further comments will be gratefully received.


End file.
